Female sex: only negative associations?

[Appleinthepark]

I mostly don't think about this but when I do, I get so upset.

I have 3 DCs and I have children of both genders. When expectong my DD I came across scientific papers on offspring sex ratio. Most of them claim that:

-more girls are born in stressful times like during a famine or war
-poor, short, starving mothers have more girls
-stressed mothers have more girls
-fathers with anxiety history have more girls
-billionaires have more sons

I found these facts so upsetting and still do. Boys are associated with all the good stuff: they are walking indicators of wealthy, dominating, well nourished, condident yet relaxed parents. Those who have girls are worse off.

I know they are just scientific papers but I actually got quite offended first, then sad: I generally find it difficult to think I am not capable of something and those papers make me feel like being a woman or having girls is somehow an indicator of being less worthy or not being the best version of yourself.

How do others feel about such scientific papers? Any woman here who does not feel like these statements get under your skin?

Cannabis is a good example. When stressed (day lengths) it goes onto flower.

Ahem.

Most strains of cannabis (which is dioecious) use photoperiodicity to trigger flowering - shorter days lead to a build up of a light sensitive hormone which signals flowering. As an annual plant cannabis only gets one shot.

There are strains that "autoflower" and will move into flowering regardless of photoperiod.

A stressed cannabis plant can tend towards hermaphrodite tendencies. "Hermies" in the unreconstructed trade of cannabis breeding.

If your main goal is cannabis for medicine you want female plants. Which explains why seeds for sale are quite often "feminized". Since for reasons of reality cannabis knows nothing about gender.

There is a whole body of research which shows how evolution led to the cannabis plant coming in 2 distinct sexes (like stinging nettles and some trees).

So the take home message is that female cannabis plants are more valuable. Most growers will bin any male plants as soon as possible since for the drug you want unpollinated females (sinsemilla means "without seed" in Spanish)

You're really misinterpreting and overthinking all this, I think, OP.
You said got kids of both sexes, right? Maybe you happened to have a girl when you were feeling more stressed than when you had a boy? But that's just coincidence - it's near enough a 50:50 coin flip.

You said got kids of both sexes, right?

Most pointedly, the OP did not say that .....

No, I am assuming she's using 'gender' as a euphemism for sex as 'gender' is otherwise irrelevant and she immediately followed by mentioning 'sex ratios'.

The differences they are talking about, while statistically significant on a population level, are tiny on an indivual levels. It can be 52% girls vs 48% boys, as opposed to 51% girls 49% boys.

Its nothing to do with you being in a "poor state"!

OP, the only thing you should be concerned about is your complete inability to understand statistics and your misapplication of the results of some scientific studies to your own rather confused ideas about femaleness. I would suggest a short sharp course of self-education in statistics. Maybe someone has already suggested a Future Learn or equivalent.

Oh I don't believe that research. You can prove anything by research. Personally I am pleased I am a girl

I think it is the weakness/worse off aspect that disturbs me. I like girls' and women's company and love pink, and I adore and am inspired by many female leaders (who have daughters). I prefer female doctors cause I think they are often more competent and precise. So this is quite embarrasing really!

What the fuck does liking pink have to do with the price of fish?

Honestly. What nonsense. Insulting nonsense.

Step away from Google scholar. You clearly are not equipped to interpret academic results.

This kind of anthropological research shows population level patterns. It actually has nothing to do with this ‘women are the constitutionally weaker sex’ crap this OP is pedalling.

Don't write research off because this OP is being ridiculous.

Much will depend on the quality and integrity of the research. To my uninformed ear some of this sounds a bit outdated, certainly so far as so called 'developed' countries are concerned. However, in so called 'developing' countries there are practicalities of life that can (wrongly and unfairly) make a difference, which do not apply in more developed countries.

I think your reaction is perfectly reasonable and understandable. Don't get sad or upset - get active. Look for ways you can support girls and young woman in countries where the issue is most acute.

This kind of anthropological research shows population level patterns.

Quite so - at an individual it's mostly just the heads or tails of whether an X or Y sperm does the fertilisation

It actually has nothing to do with this ‘women are the constitutionally weaker sex’ crap this OP is pedalling.

I don't think that's quite what she's saying - it's actually something odder: that having a girl marks the mother out as being weaker in some way compared to other women.

Whereas actually it could well be that in the studies of malnourished populations, some of the 'weakest' women lost a male foetus and didn't have a baby at all.

That’s true @ErrolTheRednosedDragon. She is saying something extremely weird about the shame of gestating a girl.

But this OP being weird and ridiculous and having no ability to grasp the basic arguments of what she’s reading doesn’t tell us anything about the research itself. So we shouldn’t write any research off based on this OP’s odd summary.

Thank you, this is probably like you said.
When I reread the papers they were based on data from 1800s or so and some major world events like the Spanish flu.

Many have pointed out that what I don't get right is how statistics should be read. Not every boy is born to the wealthy and clueless, confident couples and not every girl is born to anxious, stressed, worried couples. Just like there are very tall people born in spring even tough statistically people born in autumn are slightly taller, on average.(for example: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X22000533)

I really did find it upsetting that all female offspring related seemed to portray mothers of girls in quite sad light (famine, stress, poverty) but many of you offered some really positive points of view. Now I see mothers of girls as resilient survivors as well.

Good, hope you're feeling better OP.